Profit excluding some items next year will be $1.50 to
$1.55 a share, the Deerfield, Illinois-based company said today
in a statement. The average estimate of 16 analysts surveyed by
Bloomberg was $1.58. Third-quarter sales for Mondelez business
on a pro-forma basis fell 5.1 percent to $8.3 billion, while
operating income gained 2.2 percent. Excluding currency
fluctuations, revenue rose 1.5 percent.

“As we expected, our top-line growth this quarter was
modest,” Chief Executive Officer Irene Rosenfeld said in the
statement. “This reflected the lapping of our exceptional
performance in the third quarter last year and a lower
contribution from pricing. We also had some short-term
executional missteps in a few key countries, but these issues
should be largely resolved by the end of the year.”

The missteps resulted in “weak” results in Brazil and
Russia. In Brazil, sales of gum were hurt by a slowing economy
and a reduction in marketing trimmed revenue from biscuits,
Rosenfeld said during a conference call with analysts. In
Russia, Mondelez lost market share when competitors cut prices
on coffee and chocolate products, she said.

‘Red Flag’

“Those are emerging markets, and you want to see things
going well there,” Brian Yarbrough, an analyst for Edward Jones
in St. Louis, said in a telephone interview. “Anytime there is
an executional issue, that kind of raises a red flag.”

The company is working to address the issues and expects
fourth-quarter revenue, excluding the effect of foreign currency
exchange-rate fluctuations and other items, to increase at a
high single-digit percentage rate in developing markets. Total
revenue by that measure will gain by mid-single digits.

Mondelez fell 1.8 percent to $25.77 in late trading at 6:09
p.m. New York time.

Kraft was split up so the snacks business, which became
Mondelez, could push products into emerging markets by adding
new offerings alongside its Oreo cookies and Cadbury chocolates.
The remaining company, Kraft Foods Group Inc., contains the
North American grocery unit that includes brands such as
Velveeta and Oscar Mayer.

Kraft Foods earlier today posted higher third-quarter
income and revenue, helped by price increases and stronger sales
of cheese. Net income rose 13 percent to $470 million, or 79
cents a share, from $417 million, or 70 cents, a year earlier,
the Northfield, Illinois-based company said.